Winona Ryder

Actor / Convict

Born: 29 October 1971

Birthplace: Winona, Minnesota

Best known as: The star of Heathers

Name at birth: Winona Laura Horowitz

Winona Ryder is the star of the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016), but she's best known as one of the hot young stars of the 1990s. After a memorable early role as the ghoulish daughter in Beetlejuice (1988, with Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), she grabbed meaty parts in off-kilter films like Heathers (1989, with Christian Slater) and Edward Scissorhands (1990, opposite then-boyfriend Johnny Depp). She also starred in mainstream dramas like Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997, with Sigourney Weaver). Dark-haired and pale, Ryder seemed to gain a more delicate and even fragile onscreen persona as she matured; some compared her look to that of Audrey Hepburn. Ryder earned Oscar nominations for her performances in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993) and in Little Women (1994, with Kirsten Dunst) and was an executive producer and co-star of the 1999 film Girl, Interrupted (starring Angelina Jolie). Ryder's off-screen reputation and luck at the box office suffered after a 2001 arrest for shoplifting (she was convicted in 2002), but she has continued to collect lead roles in independent films, including the 2006 movie version of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly (directed by Richard Linklater and starring Keanu Reeves).

Extra credit:

Ryder’s godfather was counter-culture icon Timothy Leary… Her shoplifting arrest was on 12 December 2001, at a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills; after a trial the next year, she was found guilty of felony grand theft and vandalism, and sentenced to three years of probation, fines and 480 hours of community service time.